Adobe Illustrator CC - Essentials Training Course

Draw a sleeping fox in Illustrator by tracing a placed image using basic shapes. Set RGB color mode, create a template layer, and use smart guides to align and refine.

Learn to draw lines, arcs, and stars in Illustrator. Master line widths, fills, and layers to build a simple fox illustration.

Scale objects in Illustrator while preserving stroke and corner radii. Learn to toggle scale stroke and effects and scale with or without selection for consistent icons.

Save to the creative cloud or to your desktop, and learn how cloud benefits include auto saving, version history, offline access, and invite-to-edit sharing across devices.

Learn how to export images from Adobe Illustrator early in the course, using WebP and PNG with lossless, 150 resolution, medium settings, and fallback guidance when WebP isn't supported.

Complete your first creature branding class project in Illustrator, using the random project generator for a unique brief to create a logo, flyer, product sticker, and social media assets.

Master the shape builder tool in Adobe Illustrator CC to join and delete shapes, color fills, and create complex forms with shortcut tips and smart guides.

Use the shape builder to redraw icons from basic shapes on the drawing layer; export as WebP or PNG and upload.

Learn to create icons in Illustrator using the Shape Builder tool, polygon and rectangle tools, and smart guides to align shapes with clean fills and strokes.

Learn to align, distribute, rotate, and use math in the fields in Illustrator to build an impossible triangle with the shape builder, smart guides, and gap detection.

Draw and color the impossible triangle in Adobe Illustrator CC, adjust the background and triangle colors, and optionally add creative flair while applying the skills learned so far.

Explore text to vector in Illustrator, using generative AI to convert prompts into vector art, with options for icon or illustration styles, and tips for prompting and refining generated vectors.

Use the text to vector feature to create a creature that represents your product, experiment with a visual style like steampunk, and save the prompt to share with others.

Master curvature tool in Adobe Illustrator to redraw line drawings with smooth curves, an easier alternative to the pen tool, using anchor points and handles with the direct selection tool.

Master the curvature tool to create straight lines and curves by double-clicking for corners, turning off fill, and blending straight and curved segments for polished vector art.

Practice curvature tool by redrawing the owl and coloring your characters, then trace a simple icon or silhouette of your chosen creature for practice, with licensing and isolation mode tips.

Master skill stacking by combining curvature and shape builder tools to craft moonlit fox shadows, adjusting fills, strokes, and swatches for cohesive color and shading.

Master the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator CC, learning to create curves and corners with anchor points and handles, compare it to the curvature tool, and gain precision through practice.

Practice pen tool drawing by replicating an owl and a creature, then compare with curvature tool versions side by side. Save, upload to assignments, and share in class projects.

Master the pen tool in Illustrator to tidy up student work; adjust anchor points and handles, remove excess points, and join paths for smooth curves.

Practice pen tool redemption by duplicating your creature, refining its shapes, and comparing before and after with class project examples, then share improved versions in project submissions.

Combine tools to draw and color a fox in Illustrator, using curvature, pen, shape builder, line segment, and ellipse tools, with outline mode and smart guides.

Practice drawing in Illustrator using basic shapes, shape builder, pen, and curvature tools, with outline view and x-ray mode. Resize templates on layer one, color, save, and share online.

Master generative recolor in Illustrator with AI prompts to create color variations for a fox, adjusting lightness and tone and experimenting with styles like seaside and cyberpunk.

Create a mood board in Illustrator to capture product inspiration, using RGB artboards, screenshots from Dribbble, Behance, and Google Images, arranged as a dynamic collage.

Create a mood board by adding your brand, gathering images, and arranging them on the page. Save the mood board from Illustrator and upload it to the assignment for review.

Discover how to turn Illustrator designs into real t-shirts using a vinyl cutter and iron, export print-ready files for on-demand services, and manage RGB, PDF, SVG, and PNG outputs.

Master the pencil tool in Adobe Illustrator CC by tweaking default options, enabling smoothing, and editing anchor points with the direct selection tool for cleaner strokes.

Import a product photo from free sources, lock it on its own layer, and draw with the pencil tool to create a doodle; save and upload your work.

Explore how to customize strokes in Illustrator by adjusting corners and mitres, refining caps and profiles, and using the direct selection tool to tweak points.

Create and customize arrowheads in Illustrator by using the curvature, pencil, and direct selection tools, adjusting stroke weight, arrowhead size, and caps and profiles, and flipping ends as needed.

Master brushes in Illustrator CC to transform strokes into hand-drawn effects, customize brush options, and apply them to sketches using the brush tool and libraries.

Use the brush tool to produce a product-related doodle or thought bubble for your own product, applying brush and stroke techniques, then save, upload, and share your social media graphic.

Master the simplify tool to reduce anchor points and create smooth paths in Illustrator, balancing detail with automatic and manual adjustments.

Master the width tool in Adobe Illustrator to bend strokes, set rounded caps, and create ligatures by adjusting anchor points with the direct selection tool and curvature techniques.

Create a simple biodegradable icon using the width tool to craft line drawings inspired by eco icons, add green color, and share your file in assignments or on social media.

Learn four practical methods to join two line segments in Illustrator, including path join, average, the join tool, and the shape builder tool, with tips for when each works best.

Create intertwining, overlapping shapes in Illustrator with the Intertwine feature, select two shapes, assign over/under order, edit via isolation mode, and build with the rectangle tool.

Create an intertwine design by overlapping shapes and strokes, experimenting with repeat patterns and color palettes using Illustrator's color mixer and external tools like Color.adobe.com, then share and critique.

master expand appearance in Illustrator to detach strokes from fills, turn brush and width tool effects into editable shapes, and simplify or ungroup for precise control.

Create a postcard document in Illustrator and set a 4x6 inch landscape canvas. Build a three-column layout with layered background and text, then save to the cloud with versioned files.

Learn how to add and style text in Illustrator using point text and area text, convert between them, resize for reflow, and use placeholder lorem ipsum to build layouts.

Learn to pick fonts in Illustrator using filters to compare serif and sans serif options, then favorite fonts for quick reuse and apply size and weight for hierarchy.

Learn to access and install Adobe fonts in Illustrator, activate and preview fonts, and filter options by slab serif, condensed, and weights to compare styles on the Adobe Fonts site.

Explore font pairing as an art, using Adobe Fonts to match serif and sans serif fonts, and apply pairings like Museo Slab with Avant Garde to headings and body text.

Choose two or more postcard fonts, test Adobe fonts and pairings, create a heading with your brand on a colored background, and submit a screenshot or jpeg to class projects.

Discover how to find and apply glyphs in Illustrator by exploring the glyphs panel, toggling character alternatives, and using fonts with ornament and alternative symbols to enhance typography.

Design three logo types by pairing two fonts for name and product, study wordmark concepts, and refine glyphs in Illustrator, then share and provide constructive feedback in monochrome.

Learn to curve text along a line in Illustrator using the curvature tool and type on a path, adjust fill, stroke, alignment, spacing, and baseline for precise typography.

Learn to create circular type on a path to form a badge in Adobe Illustrator, using two circles, type on a path options, tracking, flipping, and stroke effects.

Create curve text on a path and a circle badge for a product design in Illustrator, using your own wording and a central illustration, then share screenshots.

Convert editable text to outlines in Illustrator to create stencil-like shapes, delete centers, and reshape letters using the direct selection tool and anchor-point edits.

Learn to adjust an existing drawing or text by outlining it, then refine with the pencil tool to create smooth, joined shapes, using keep selected and simplify.

Create a heavy metal band logo for a class project using type on a path, outlining the type, and drawing with pencil and direct selection tools, plus the shape builder.

Master intertwining text to create a monogram in Illustrator by using glyphs and the glyphs panel to customize letters, while keeping the text editable.

Create two monograms in Illustrator CC—one with your initials and one for your brand—by experimenting with fonts and letter pairings, refining intertwined letters, and sharing for feedback.

Learn the differences between rgb and cmyk color modes, plus hsv and hex representations in Illustrator, and when to use each for digital versus print projects.

Use the eyedropper tool to steal colors from logos and images in Illustrator, then apply them to fills or strokes across objects and mood boards.

Create a reusable named RGB swatch in the swatches panel, then save it in a CC library to reuse across documents and maintain brand colors.

Explore transparency and opacity in Illustrator. Learn how to darken images with a translucent overlay, adjust opacity, place files, and layer text for clear contrast.

Use CC libraries in Adobe Illustrator CC to store logos, colors, and fonts for brand consistency across Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, and share and update assets across apps.

Learn to find great colors with Adobe Color by exploring harmony rules and trends, copy hex codes, and save palettes to Illustrator Essentials via the Creative Cloud Library.

Create color variants of your logo, monogram, or creature in Illustrator, using at least five color themes from color dot adobe.com, save, and share for feedback.

Learn to use Adobe Illustrator's generative recolor to recolor artwork by crafting prompts, generating diverse color variants, and controlling tone variation to keep linked colors.

Create six recolored versions of your Illustrator project using prompts for generative recolor. Type in the prompt underneath, lay out duplicates, and share results to class projects and social media.

Learn to create and manipulate linear and radial gradients in Illustrator using the gradient tool, color stops, and the midpoint, then refine colors with swatches, color mixer, and the eyedropper.

Learn to fix missing images in Illustrator by using the Links panel to relink or embed, understanding when to embed to prevent missing image errors and manage file size.

Master cropping images in Illustrator by using clipping masks with shapes, layering techniques, and precise adjustments to reveal the desired content.

Finish a postcard project in Adobe Illustrator CC by adding your logo, cropping images, and exploring color, gradients, and opacity; share 1–3 versions for feedback.

Learn to cut holes in shapes in Illustrator with compound paths. Select two shapes, ensure the top one is positioned to cut, and press Command/Ctrl+8 to create the hole.

Learn to separate compound shapes and masks in Illustrator by releasing, ungrouping, and breaking apart nested groups, using outline view to see and separate the pieces.

Create a paper cut depth effect in Illustrator by combining blobs with compound paths, using a clipping mask, and adding a drop shadow for dimensional depth.

Create four paper cut effect variations by adjusting colors and crops, using clipping masks and color tools like generative recolor or Adobe colors.

Learn to use artboards in Illustrator to create, duplicate, and arrange multiple pages for designs like business cards, while avoiding overlap and using smart guides and alignment.

design a two-sided business card in illustrator, laying out name, phone, email, and address with brand colors, icons, and a logo, guided by a mood board.

Explore how to apply liquify, warp, twirl, pucker, bloat, wrinkle, and crystallize tools in Illustrator to distort artwork and create playful effects, with practical brush sizes and intensities.

Experiment with liquify type using modify tools on the exercise file. Duplicate the artboard, outline the text with a new font, create three product adjectives, save an image, and share.

Learn to create a sliced text effect in Illustrator by converting text to outlines, slicing with a line and shape builder, and applying a faux drop shadow with multi-gradient shading.

Practice the sliced text technique to craft a cheesy brand slogan with multiple gradients, outlining the text, and applying color and fonts from Adobe Fonts for a sharp advertising effect.

Explore non-destructive envelope distort techniques to warp shapes in Adobe Illustrator, using arc, flag, and wave presets, isolation mode, and expand to fine-tune gradients.

Learn to warp and bend text in Illustrator using envelope distort, isolation mode, and expand, comparing envelope distort with type on a path.

Create an establishing flag for your brand in illustrator using triangles and the rectangle tool, then bend it with envelope distort warp and refine by duplicating or flipping one side.

Learn to build a badge banner with a flag warp in adobe illustrator cc using shapes, type, and envelope distort, from blank canvas to a polished finish.

Convert a hand sketch into a scalable vector using live trace. Edit paths and color with the shape builder and color libraries to create a polished illustration.

Convert a raster image into a vector in Illustrator using live trace, expand, and color tweaks. Adjust colors with presets, simplify vector points, and apply generative recolor to vary fills.

Learn to convert a photo into a stencil silhouette in Illustrator using live trace and threshold, then refine with Photoshop masking and export as a PNG for clean stencils.

Duplicate the silhouette to create three copies and align them. Switch colors to cyan and pink, adjust brightness, and move layers to form the vector anaglyph effect.

Create a social media ad from a vectorized artwork using live trace, research templates, and set the Instagram story pixel size with logo and graphics.